Kenya pastor Mackenzie faces verdict over 191 child deaths

A Kenyan court is set to deliver a verdict in the case against preacher Paul Mackenzie and 29 followers accused of murdering 191 children, BBC News reported on 19 October. Prosecutors allege that children were forced to starve under a religious doctrine promising they would meet Jesus.

All 30 defendants have pleaded not guilty to murder and maintain that nobody was compelled to die. The impending judgement is Mackenzie's first verdict on murder charges, although he and other leaders also face separate proceedings involving terrorism, radicalisation and denying children education.

Authorities say more than 400 bodies were recovered from shallow graves in Shakahola forest near Kenya's coast, where Mackenzie had brought followers from across the country. That wider death toll is distinct from the 191 child victims named in this murder case.

Child victims remain unidentified

The documents setting out the charges run to 298 pages. Many victims could not be identified because their remains had decomposed extensively; some children are recorded only by sex, grave location and the date their bodies were found.

Mackenzie's former security chief, Enos Amanya Ngala, was initially among those accused. He subsequently entered a plea agreement and became a prosecution witness.

Seventeen men from a nearby town were hired to help recover bodies, with some receiving about $8 a day. Gravediggers described finding several children buried together and some remains with limbs bound. Their accounts convey the scale of the recovery operation, but responsibility for the deaths is the question before the court.

A television ministry and a move into the forest

Mackenzie founded Good News International Ministries in 2003. Over the following 16 years, it attracted thousands of followers through branches across Kenya. Its Times TV station carried sermons from his church in Malindi.

His teachings rejected formal education and healthcare, and promoted conspiracy theories about digital identity cards. The main church closed in 2019, after which Mackenzie moved to Shakahola and urged followers to join him.

Local herders discovered the first remains in March 2023. By then, hundreds had died, according to the report. Gravedigger Salim Karisa described efforts to carry severely weakened people out of the forest, some of whom died before they could be brought to safety.

Families describe loss and divided loyalties

Stephen Mwiti, 48, said all six of his children died in Shakahola, but that he had recovered and buried only the remains of his son Samuel. His former wife is among Mackenzie's co-accused. Mwiti said the preacher's televised sermons had first brought the teachings into his home in Malindi.

Peter Shukrani, 23, offered a different perspective. He said he moved to the forest with his mother in 2019 and became seriously ill, while she discarded his medicine because of the group's teachings. Rescued in March 2023 after weeks bedridden, he said he would not have survived had he remained there.

Despite that experience, Shukrani continued to defend Mackenzie and maintained that followers chose to fast rather than being forced. Mackenzie's son, Dan Paul Mackenzie, who previously worked as a church cameraperson, took the opposite position: he said his father should be convicted because followers looked to him for leadership. These conflicting personal assessments are not a substitute for the court's findings.